


On The Verge of Normalcy

by ItWasAlwaysYou



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, EDNOS, Eating Disorder, Me projecting my issues onto a fictional character: more likely than you think, Self Harm, self hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 03:45:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItWasAlwaysYou/pseuds/ItWasAlwaysYou
Summary: Peter knows what he’s doing isn’t healthy, but he still doesn’t see a reason to stop





	On The Verge of Normalcy

Peter was smart.  
Smart maybe wasn’t the right word, sure, he failed a quiz like once a week but when report cards came around he always made high honor roll.  
He, like all other students going to a New York public school had to take a health class, one in seventh grade and one in senior year, as Peter was now a tenth grader he had lived through the horrors of seventh grade health, taught by a gym teacher in an empty English classroom.  
They hadn’t learned much.   
But one of the government mandated topics of discussion were eating disorders, they had talked about them for a solid five class periods, warning signs, health risks, what to do if someone you knew exhibited symptoms.  
But one thing that they hadn’t spoken about was what to do when the siren was luring you in.   
Peter knew the dangers since the very beginning which somehow made him feel worse, like if he knew how dangerous what he was doing was a good plan was to stop while you were ahead, but he wanted to finally feel good in his body he didn’t want to be fat anymore, he didn’t want to have to deal with May’s “are you really going to eat all of that” and “maybe you should cut back on the carbs”  
He knew the risks but he still wanted the reward.  
To be able to have hip bones that stuck out, and skinny wrists, it would be utter bliss.  
He didn’t fast, he knew that brain function burned five hundred calories a day and so he set his calorie maximum to six hundred.  
He was smart like that.  
He jogged around the Manhattan boulevards for fun and burned five times what he ate during patrol alone.   
His anxious leg bounce and constant fidgeting also had to burn something.  
He still wasn’t happy though.  
He felt his collarbones worried that after he ate they would disappear back into the mass of fat that was the rest of his body.  
He wished for his fingers to be able to encircle his arm all the way to his elbow.   
People noticed.  
He would have had to be a damned fool if he didn’t notice that people noticed.   
MJ was first, she always noticed everything.  
He had caught her shooting concerned glances in his general direction before making eye contact with Ned, a silent plea for him to bring up the topic so she wouldn’t have to.  
So, yeah Ned knew too.  
The next person in the worry chain of command was Mr. Stark, who, on many occasions had asked if him and May were having money trouble, he looked more concerned when Peter had insisted that everything monetarily was fine, May had even been given a raise.  
May hadn’t noticed, she worked so hard and hardly saw him, he would slip the money that he was given for takeout back into her purse or in one of the other more obscure places she stashed money around her room and the apartment.  
One of his low points was when even Flash, the boy who hated his guts and was put on the planet for the sheer purpose of making his like hell, approached him in the hallway, when he pushed him softly and Peter had fallen like a sack of potatoes the look of utter concern in Flash’s eyes had made him rethink everything, but when he stood on the scale later that night and had weighed in at 127.9 all remembrance of the sad brown eyes of the boy disappeared from his memory, he had to keep going, at least until the blue, block shaped numbers of the scale read 115.0.  
So Peter continued his daily routine, just enough calories to function, patrol, work in the lab with Mr. Stark, sleep, repeat.  
So, yeah Peter was smart.   
Peter knew what he was doing.  
Peter knew exactly what he was doing.


End file.
